The harvest itself is also a horror story, on top of the environmental devastation, this is cotton picked using forced labour. Land in most of the surrounding areas, regardless of the crop, was saturated with dangerous levels of chemicals needed to … The Aral Sea started to shrink in the 1960s when the Soviets diverted water from the two main rivers that flowed into the Aral Sea to feed vast new cotton fields. By 1994, up to 150,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals had entered the water in the region [13]. At that time, the main objective was to convert cotton into "white gold" distributing and exporting cotton to textile factories in and outside Central Asia and Kazakhstan [7]. However, the Soviet Union dissolved by December of 1991 and (like in the Chernobyl case) the responsibility and liability for the Aral Sea disaster fell to the independent republics [7]. 2003;76(3):1043-1066. Agric Syst. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature.

There were no fish in the Soviet Union like the fish in Aral. Do you consider this an environmental justice success? [click to view], [4] Schettler G, Oberhänsli H, Hahne K. Ra-226 and Rn-222 in saline water compartments of the Aral Sea region. Lost in transition? Most estimates are that between a third and half the dead perished in famines in the early 1930s. Japan) and money distributed for its rehabilitation began [6]. The Dust Bowl was both an ecological and social disaster that displaced hundreds of thousands of families and caused thousands of premature deaths. Last modified on Sat 16 Feb 2019 15.32 EST. The Aral Sea dries up due to irrigation for increased cotton production to feed the textile industry. Campaigners have also managed to get 153 fashion brands to sign a pledge to never knowingly use Uzbek cotton.

The “Dust Bowl,” was a period of severe dust storms across the prairies of the U.S. and Canada in the 1930s caused by poor agricultural practices.

Between about 1929 and his death in 1953, most historians now estimate that Stalin had been directly responsible for the deaths of somewhere around 20 million people. The contracts could be verified using traceability systems and social audits, a process that requires time and money but which is fully achievable. Description: The Aral Sea was once the 4th largest inland water bodies in the world [1–3] with a volume of 1000 km3 and a surface area of 66000 km2 [3]. Fisheries and traditional irrigation methods were abandoned and ultimately lost.


Uzbekistan government does not make necessary steps to restore the Aral Sea. As the water supply to the Aral decreased, the demand for cotton increased and, in response, more pesticides and fertilizers were poured onto the land. By clicking "Accept cookies" you consent to place cookies when visiting the website. The Aral Sea was destroyed by mismanagement innate to the Soviet agricultural system, not by the water requirements of cotton. Some of the environmental concerns arising from the uncontrolled water management and irrigation practices include: reduction in water quality, waterlogging, salinization, water depletion; they threaten human health as well [6]. The Aral Sea once supplied a sixth of the Soviet Union’s supply of fish As a result of the drying of the lake over the past decades, millions of fish have died, coastlines have receded miles from towns, and those few people who have remained have been plagued by dust storms that contained the toxic residue of industrial agriculture and weapons testing in the area. Its water was scarcely touched during the 1950s [2]. The fashion industry is linked to this horror of dictatorships and environmental devastation by the fact that the crop being grown with the river water is cotton – 1.47m hectares of cotton.

As Vandana Shiva said ‘no species has deliberately designed its own extinction’, but with industrial agriculture we have. A salinity study in 1999 revealed that the river water was unsuitable for drinking purposes, and in some cases infiltration to the ground had also contaminated phreatic aquifers [12]. Arid Ecosyst. In the 1950’s the Soviet Union began using the rivers to irrigate the surrounding agricultural area, a process that has been continued to this day by Uzbekistan’s brutal dictator Islam Karimov. 2014. Further, cotton accounted for less than half, 41% of cultivated land; grains, including rice and wheat, accounted for 32% of cultivated land, fruit crops 11%, vegetables 4%, and other crops 12%. In the history of world agriculture, there is not a single other example of a major ecosystem being destroyed by water use associated with cotton production. [click to view], [14] Veldwisch GJA, Mollinga PP. But to ignore the industry’s role in the loss of the Aral Sea is to ignore the destruction of our planet.

[click to view], [3] EJF.

By June 1990, an agreement stating that the Aral basin was on the verge of ecological disaster was signed by the presidents of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan; it was stated that the problem was so big they could not solve it by themselves [7]. The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth largest lake, home to 24 species of fish and surrounded by fishing communities, lush forests and wetlands. The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, causing human misery, enormous cost of life and gigantic environmental devastation.”. In addition to the desire for increased agricultural production, attention should also be given to the large quantity of pesticides and fertilizers that drained into the sea during the cotton boom, which have bound to the salts of the seabed. 1.3 million hectares (ha) of land are for cotton, 1999 = 48g/l 'Big Sea' and 21g/l 'Small Sea', [7] Glantz MH, Rubinstein AZ, Zonn I. Tragedy in the Aral Sea basin. The diversion of the water for the increase of cotton production was believed to drastically increase exports and feed the countries’ clothing material; from 1960 ~ 1980, cotton production almost doubled, the Soviet Union was producing a quarter of the world’s cotton; however declining hereafter [3,7]. Al pulsar "Accept cookies" consiente dichas cookies.
A lack of concern in the Russian scientific arena also arose during that time, Russian scientist Voyeykov suggested that the Aral Sea water was an unimportant body, that if it needed to dry up in order to use the rivers water for irrigation and agricultural purposes then it was to use it for beneficial use [7]. The salinization in the water has led to a decreased crop yield and un-drinkable water [6]. doi:10.1016/0959-3780(93)90005-6.

[click to view], [9] Indoitu R, Kozhoridze G, Batyrbaeva M, et al. This consisted of converting land surrounding the sea to be used mainly for cotton fields, and to a lesser extent rice [2,5–7]. The Aral Sea is located in Central Asia between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was at one time one of the largest lakes in the world. The rivers Syr Darya and the Amu Darya fed the sea as well as all the fish living in it [5]. The Aral Sea dries up due to irrigation for increased cotton production to feed the textile industry.

2013;3(4):227-234.